Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Happy 4th of July!

Celebrating today the Enlightenment experiment called the U. S. of A. on this anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. I love the Preamble to the Constitution that went into effect some 13 years later:

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,

establish Justice,

insure domestic Tranquility,

provide for the common defense,

promote the general Welfare, and

secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

5 comments:

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,•establish Justice, •insure domestic Tranquility, •provide for the common defense, •promote the general Welfare, and•secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity•do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I like it too, Ken!Establishing justice is the duty of the Supreme Court (interpreting the Constitution)

Insuring domestic tranquility is the duty of the President (oath of office to uphold the Constitution)

Providing for the common defense is the duty of Congress in their oversight of declaring war

Promoting the general welfare is the duty of all Americans is doing their jobs in their chosen area of "service".

Although there are different duties of each office in government, government itself was to be about "the people's business", that is, America, herself! And this is where each citizen is called to be informed and engaged (the Media is a necessary 4th branch to our government said one Founder). The citizen can promote the "general welfare" by informing themselves, others, and becoming involved in politics, too.

It used to be that only property owners could vote, as they were the producers in society. And production was what furthered the "general welfare". Until slaves and women were given equal status in voting rights, these were not deemed worthy of that privilege. The worth of their "right" might have been argued based on "God", but it could have been argued on economic reasons, as well. And it was in Marx's understanding. Unions protected the economic rights of "the worker". So, our society has "progressed" to the conflicts we have in today's world over "whose right" will win and why.

Conflict is about competition on whose views will win over society in policy. And that makes for the "market of ideas" and the better environment for innovation technologically, as information is shared. The difficulty today is the question of where we will draw our lines on national security, and the sharing of information....

The leaders we choose to lead our nation are still to be responsible to uphold their oaths and protect the citizen's interests and not just ther own interests...or subversion/defrauding the American people by undermining their interests, which has to be based upon liberty or choice. The value of choice is a foundational principle to America's understanding of liberty.

The values of the Constitution would be diminished if we did not have the Bill of Rights(especially the first amendment). I myself hope that the dysfunctionality of our current politics can lessen. We need to reach some consensus on issues such as taxation and spending. Americans also need to remember that we have corrected(at least to some extent) the historical evils of slavery and racism. However, we also need to be more prudent as a people and not engage in wars and other foreign adventures which we ask the next generations to pay for. We must be willing to reduce spending and not think that all problems are solved by tax cuts. The last period of a balanced budget was under President Clinton during the 1990s. We also need to protect our freedoms and restore a sense of balance between what we are willing to pay for and what we spend. God bless America and our troops in foreign lands.